Madurai leads the way- Thesia Murasu site. Landlines retention.

All over the country, surrender of land line telephones is a common phenomenon and to stop and retain the land line subscribers is a very big challenge for BSNL. Each and every SSA is taking various strategies to lure the subscribers from going away. Now Madurai SSA has taken a novel decision and has changed the billing pattern. Henceforth, calls will not be charged on the basis of pulse rate. Hitherto BSNL used to charge a subscriber one call, even if he talks for 30 seconds, as the pulse rate for local calls is fixed as one meter for 180 seconds. And similarly the subscriber was charged while making STD calls or to mobile phones. Madurai SSA has decided to charge on the basis of actual time spent for the calls. For this, the total duration of all the calls in a billing cycle will be divided by 180 and appropriate charges will be collected from the subscriber. So, the subscribers will be paying only for the usage. This will be beneficial to the subscribers.

     This is a welcome step. But, major percentage of surrender is due to only poor quality of service which is again due to non-replacement of faulty cables and instruments, inordinate delay in fault clearance, undue delay in redressal of subscriber's grievance etc. Without paying attention to all these basic needs, we may not be able to stop surrenders. The managers must realise quality of service alone will win. But our men at helm of affairs think that just by modernising the customer care centre buildings alone will satisfy the subscriber. If you provide good and satisfactory service, maintain cables and equipments fault free, where is the need for the subscriber to come to the customer care centres?